Homecoming
by loboman749
Summary: Peter copes with Gwen's death, months after the battle with Electro. A little twist on the ending of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.


Hey there! This is my first attempt at fanfiction, and I'd really appreciate any feedback you guys have for me. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Spider-Man, or any characters featured within this story.

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You know how movies like to make it really obvious when time passes in the same location? Sometimes they'll take a shot from the same angle for hours and speed it up, and thousands of cars will zip through a city as the sun moves across the sky. Other times, they'll show a montage of the same location and how it changes with the seasons. The grass will start lush and green, and then suddenly leaves will be covering the ground, and then the first snow of winter will fall from the sky.

Now imagine a continuous shot for four months and three seasons, without speeding up playback. Time doesn't move any faster than normal. In fact, it seems to crawl, as if you'll never be able to move beyond where you are right now. The scenery slowly changes even as time seems to stand still. That's what visiting Gwen's grave every day felt like.

It started the day of her funeral. The casket had been lowered into the ground and covered with the previously disturbed earth, and everybody had left, even the Stacy family. I was still in my suit, staring at the headstone while sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees. I stayed long after the sun went down before heading back to Queens. After I spent the night lying awake in my bed, I came back and sat in front of her grave again for almost as long the day before. I had come every day since then, sometimes for a few minutes, other times for hours.

Nothing really changed. The headstone didn't move, though the grass did start growing again. The procedure was the same. I'd show up and stare, never speaking or making noise. Sometimes I'd stand, sometimes I'd sit, but all I did was stare. Stare, and try to remember. The name on the headstone was one I knew well, but I couldn't come to associate this cold piece of rock with my memories of her.

This seemingly random plot of land and a stone bearing her name and a pair of four digit numbers that were far too close to one another; this was all that remained of her? What about her smile, her laugh, or the way she rubbed at her nose and looked up at me with those big green eyes? What about how her shampoo smelled, or her obsession with that Korean meatball restaurant on 6th?

I don't know if I expected anything to happen all those times I came to her grave. I don't know if I expected to feel better, or for her to magically reappear or contact me in some way. All I ever got was the uneasy silence of the cemetery and grass stains on my pants when I chose to sit down.

I never brought flowers to her grave, mostly because there were normally flowers there already, but also because I came so often that I saw what became of the flowers. The bouquets and arrangements the others brought were always dead within a week of them appearing. I promptly threw them away whenever they stopped looking pretty. Gwen's grave deserved to be pretty. For four months, I didn't bring any sort of decoration for her grave. Then one day, I brought a Christmas wreath. Nothing special, just green pine boughs woven into a circle with a red bow.

I can't really say why I brought it, because I'm not sure myself. Maybe I thought it would look nice; add a splash of color to the grey of her headstone and the white blanket surrounding everything else. Maybe I thought the gesture might seem significant, that changing the procedure of one of my visits would catch her interest and she'd decide to speak to me somehow. In all honesty, it was probably because it was almost Christmas and she had always loved the holidays.

As I placed the wreath in front of her headstone and thought of Christmas, my lips twitched into a small smile at a memory. I saw Gwen, as she was a year ago, dressed up as one of 'Santa's little helpers.' She was wearing a green and red striped dress with long sleeves and a big black belt with a large gold buckle. Added to the already festive dress were green tights, and little elf shoes that had white fur lining by her ankles and little bells on the toes. She had a hat that matched her dress, complete with mock elf ears. Her smile was brilliant that day as she walked up to me with her feet jingling. She handed me a candy cane and pulled me in for a kiss before I could ask her if she was on the naughty list or the nice list.

As soon as I tried remembering the feel of her lips on mine, the memory slipped away. Sighing, I fell to my knees in front of the headstone and let my head hang low. Then I did something that surprised me: I started talking to her, something I had never done at her grave before.

"Hey Gwen," I said softly. "I honestly don't think you can hear me, so I'm not gonna say the cliché 'I don't know if you're listening' line. Wait, does saying I'm not going to say it count as saying it anyway? Ah, whatever. Christmas is this week, so I brought you a wreath. Classes let out a few days ago. I'm doing pretty well in school; I think you'd be proud of me. I'm actually the number one science student at Empire State University. Though that's because you're not there."

I blinked, the blurry letters of her name coming back into focus as the moisture was cleared from my eyes. "I'd be happy to be number two any day if it meant you were there," I whispered. "I haven't…I haven't gotten stuck in traffic since the night you died." I had specific excuses that I gave to different people when I was off being Spider-Man. Gwen's was one I used often, even at graduation: I got stuck in traffic. I told Aunt May that I was out skateboarding. In high school, the excuses for my teachers had been oversleeping, or feeling under the weather. In college, I had yet to use an excuse, because I hadn't been Spider-Man in about four months.

My desire to dress up in red and blue spandex had faded after I failed to catch Gwen. I still had nightmares about the terrible crack her head had made when it hit the floor, the unnatural stillness of her body. I had saved the entire city from a permanent blackout no more than three minutes before that, but then _he_ showed up.

Harry was supposed to be my best friend. His illness had progressed so much faster than his father's, and he had grown desperate, his failing health causing him to take drastic measures. Me refusing to give him my blood had been the tipping point, and he snapped in spectacular fashion.

I spent a lot of days wondering what would have happened if I had given it to him. Saying no had led Harry to inject the spider venom on his own, transforming him into the grotesque creature that had wanted to kill Gwen to spite me. I'm all but positive that my blood would have done the same thing to him, but the uncertainty lies in how he would have reacted afterwards. Would he still blame me if I had given it to him? I liked to tell myself that he would have, that his mind was far enough gone that he would have tried to take revenge anyway. That stopped me from thinking it was completely my fault that Gwen was gone.

Would Gwen have been there if Harry had come looking for me after being dissatisfied with the effects of my blood? Would he still have connected the dots, realized that it was Peter under the mask, and used Gwen to get back at me for causing his disfiguration? I didn't know. I would never know. And for my sanity, it was probably better that way.

"I miss you Gwen," I whispered, as a tear fell and melted a small patch of snow. "I don't know what to do. I feel terrible, all the time. I know that I can be out there making a difference, but I can't stop second-guessing myself. If I couldn't save the girl that I love, how am I supposed to save strangers?" I wiped at my eyes, feeling the cold bite of the air on my cheeks as tears streaked down my face.

"You should have seen the headline in the Bugle after they found your body. 'Spider-Menace Strikes Again.' They found traces of my webbing on your clothes, and Jameson pounced on that like a starving animal. He claimed that I have a vendetta against the Stacy family, what with me being there when your dad died and not being able to catch you. Even after Harry confessed, Jameson printed stories about the two of us colluding. He…he accused me of _letting_ you fall._ Purposely_." My hands were gripping my thighs tightly, knuckles white. "I haven't given him any pictures since then. I haven't put on the costume either. I want to, so badly, but I just _can't_."

I sat there in silence for a while, the wind blowing snowflakes into my eyes. I think I actually might have expected Gwen to respond, and when reality sank in that she would never speak to me again, my shoulders slumped in defeat. My jeans were wet from kneeling in the snow for so long. It was dark when I finally left to go home.

Walking into the kitchen, Aunt May looked up at me empathetically. She didn't bother asking me where I'd been; she already knew the answer. "Dinner's in the refrigerator, if you want to heat it up," she said softly. I tried to smile at her as I shook my head, but it must have looked forced because it brought tears to her eyes. "Peter, you can't keep beating yourself up over this. I know it hurts, but she wouldn't want to see you like this."

She didn't know how justified I was in beating myself up over it. She didn't know that I _could have saved her_. I know she didn't know, but it didn't stop my jaw from clenching, didn't stop the rage from filling me. Not at Aunt May, no never at her. At myself, yet again, for not being good enough to protect Gwen, for breaking my promise to her father, for not staying away and getting her killed.

"I can't stop, Aunt May! You don't understand!" And she didn't, really she didn't. Even Uncle Ben's death hadn't cut me this badly. I could have stopped that too, but I hadn't actively tried. The only thing worse than the what-if of Uncle Ben's death was the certainty that I hadn't been good enough to save Gwen.

"Peter…I understand more than you think," she whispered, taking my face in my hands and turning me to look at her. "Nobody washes the American flag, Peter." I looked at her incredulously? What the hell was she talking about? Washing the American flag? "I know why the laundry was red and blue that day."

My eyes widened. Aunt May knew. She knew that Peter Parker was the face underneath the Spider-Man mask. The tears came to my eyes again.

"How?" I choked out. "How can you ask me not to blame myself if you know? I was _there._ I was supposed to save her. It's my fault!" I broke down now, sinking to the kitchen floor. Aunt May knelt next to me and pulled my head to her shoulder, stroking my hair.

"Peter, I know how special Gwen was. But you've saved so many people. You made _one mistake_. And according the police reports and the news, it was Harry's fault. He took action, and you reacted, trying to subdue him and save Gwen at the same time. _You almost did_," she whispered at me emphatically. "Almost matters, Peter. It might seem like it doesn't, but it does. The fact that you _tried_, that you _wanted_ to help is what matters. You are one of the most amazing men I know, Peter. It must be that Parker blood, because Uncle Ben and your father are the only other two that come close."

I looked up into her eyes and saw them shining with sincerity. "You may not be able to see it right now, but this city needs Spider-Man. And honestly, I think you need him more than you know. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I want to help you make that decision." Aunt May stood and walked into the living room. She came back with a flash drive in her hand. "Mrs. Stacy came by today, said that she found this while going through Gwen's room." She turned the memory stick over in her hand and displayed a piece of tape with Gwen's neat handwriting on it: _'Gwen's Speech.'_

Aunt May put it in my hand and closed my fingers around it. "Since I know you missed it at graduation, I think it's about time you finally watched it." I nodded numbly and walked upstairs to my room. Sitting at my desk, I stared at the flash drive, tracing Gwen's handwriting with my eyes for a few minutes before plugging it into my computer.

When I opened the video file, I saw Gwen as she was on graduation day. She looked beautiful, with the sun lighting her eyes and hair, and an earnest smile on her face. Hearing her speak for the first time in months, I was enraptured. I hung off every word, trying to commit every syllable, every lilt of her voice, to memory.

Even though I knew she was talking to the student body, the framing of the video made it seem like she was speaking directly to me. Even though she wasn't making eye contact for most of the speech, it felt deeply personal, like she was begging me and me alone to hold on to hope and live life like I could accomplish anything.

There was one line that stuck with me, and Gwen focused right on the camera as she spoke it. "And even if we fail, what better way is there to live?" Even though I knew this video was six months old, it felt like forgiveness from her, like she didn't blame me for what had happened. It felt _good_. The pressure on my chest eased ever so slightly at her words.

Gwen had never wanted me to cut her out of my life as Spider-Man. She had told me time and again that she loved Peter Parker, and she would accept both parts of me if I would only let her. I should have realized earlier that making the decision to stay away without consulting her was cruel, and kind of pointless, given how often I had caved and found myself kissing her anyway. She had been right when she told me that nobody made decisions for her but herself. As the tears streamed down my face, I felt myself smiling.

As her speech came to a close, another line resonated with me. "We will carry a piece of each other into everything we do next." Glancing up at the wall where I had taped pictures of her as a permanent reminder, I smiled. I realized then that no matter whom I met or what I experienced, I would never forget Gwen Stacy for as long, or short, as I lived. I watched her speech many times that night, replaying it as soon as it ended, over and over again. Each time it finished, I felt lighter, more confident, more like myself.

I woke the next morning with my face on my desk. I guessed that I had fallen asleep around five o'clock, and it was now ten. Glancing at the computer, Gwen's video was paused with her giving me a gentle smile. I smiled at the image for a moment, before giving in to an impulse I had ignored for the past four months. I turned on the police scanner, hearing frantic calls from officers about a…mechanized rhino? Biting my lip, I glanced at my computer again. Gwen was still smiling, and that was all the encouragement I needed.

Before I could stop myself, I ran to my closet and changed into my costume. As I jumped from my window and swung towards Manhattan, it felt like I had never stopped being Spider-Man. I let loose whoops of joy as I swung between skyscrapers, rapidly moving towards the location the cops had been shouting over the radio.

As it came into sight, I saw a wall of police cars riddled with bullet holes, and a police barricade with a large crowd of people gathered behind it. About a hundred feet down the road, I saw a…mechanized rhino. _Huh, guess they weren't kidding_. But that wasn't the most amazing thing on the street.

Halfway between the police and the machine was…Spider-Man. _Last I checked, I was Spider-Man_. Maybe Spider-Boy was more appropriate. A child of no more than eight, dressed in a Spider-Man costume, was firmly planted before the rhino. His hands were balled into fists by his sides and he stared defiantly up at the rhino, even as the man operating the machine laughed and mocked him.

That's when I knew that I had been foolish these past four months. If this kid could have this much courage with absolutely no powers, then I could let go of Gwen and do what I was meant to do. Apparently, the first thing on my to-do list was to play the part of animal control.

As I swung above the crowd of people, everybody fell silent. Even the man operating the rhino-bot shut up as the smile slipped from his face. The kid didn't even turn around, determined to stop this man. I couldn't help but smile. He would make a good hero. As I landed silently behind him, I stood up and called out to the boy.

"Hey Spider-Man." He turned around slowly, and then looked up at my face. He couldn't see my smile, but when he lifted his mask, the smile on his face told me he understood. I recognized this boy. I had walked him home once, after some neighborhood bullies broke his homemade wind turbine. He had told me his name…Jorge, that's what it was. I briefly wished I could lift my mask to show him the smile on my face, but there were too many people around.

"I knew you'd come back!" Jorge exclaimed, and my smile widened just a bit. This hope, this unwavering faith in me, this is what would let me push through all of the bullshit that Jameson printed at the Bugle, all of the self-doubt and guilt I felt about Gwen's death. Kneeling down, I got on Jorge's level before speaking to him.

"Yeah, thanks for stepping up for me," I said. "You're the bravest kid I've ever seen." Jorge beamed at that. "I'm gonna take care of this jerk, you go take care of your mom, okay?" Jorge nodded enthusiastically, and when I extended my fist towards him, he bumped it with his own without question. "Alright, get outta here, go. Go." I guided him with a hand on his back towards his mother. She was sobbing near the police barricade, but appeared instantly relieved when she had her son wrapped in her arms. The crowd cheered for Jorge, and I turned back towards the threat at hand.

The man in the rhino had the decency to stay quiet throughout my conversation with Jorge, but now that my attention was firmly on him, he took that as his cue to start making noise again.

"You will fight me? You will fight me now, heh?" He spoke in a thick Russian accent, and smiled at me manically. He gave off a distinctly James Bond villain vibe, and I swear he would have been rubbing his hands together if the rhino had that kind of flexibility. Hopping onto the police car behind me, I took a megaphone from an officer. Before turning around, I froze as my eyes saw something I hadn't seen in months. Standing beside the officer was the ghost of Captain Stacy, but instead of the disapproving glare I had seen in my previous hallucinations, there was a small smile, and a jerk of the head, encouraging me to look in that direction.

My eyes flickered towards where he had indicated, my heart stopping for just a moment as I caught sight of blonde hair and beautiful green eyes. The ghost of Gwen smiled at me, nodding towards the rhino, silently telling me to kick some ass. Instead of blinking-which would dispel what I obviously knew was an illusion- I turned back to the man in the suit and raised the megaphone to my mouth. Feeling better than I had in months, the witty comments rolled off my tongue easily as I effortlessly slipped back into my Spider-Man persona.

"On behalf of the fine people of New York City, and real rhinos everywhere, I ask you to put your mechanized paws in the air." The rhino stomped at this, the operator snarling as I mocked him in front of the crowd. A few moments ago they were cowering in fear, but now they were rallied behind me, cheering excitedly. A guy could get used to that.

"Never! I crush you, I kill you, I destroy you!" The robot stomped and slammed the pavement with its fists to punctuate each of his promises, and I cocked my head to the side questioningly. Turning on the megaphone again, I answered as coyly as possible.

"You want me to come down there so you can kill me?"

"Yes!" The man shouted, and even from this distance, I swear I saw spit fly from his lips. Smirking at his eagerness, and feeling the familiar beginning of an adrenaline rush, I responded one last time.

"I'll be right there." Carelessly tossing the megaphone over my shoulder, I heard an officer catch it before I shook out my arms and legs to limber up. "Ahh, there's no place like home," I all but sighed.

The rhino pawed at the ground and took off running towards me on all fours before firing three missiles at me. I dove off the car, rolling and attaching two web-lines to the manhole cover in front of me. Vaulting off the ground and pulling it with me, time seemed to slow down.

Spinning in the air, I used the manhole cover to block and deflect the projectiles. Letting my momentum carry me closer to the rhino, I spun once more, pulling hard on the web-lines in my hand to whip the giant metal plate around.

Right before it impacted with the rhino's head, I caught sight of Gwen smiling at me from the corner of my eye. Smiling, my attention turned back to the rhino and I thought one thing before time sped back up and I sucker-punched it. _It's good to be back._


End file.
